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Canadian accused of helping Gadhafi family now released from Mexican jail

Cynthia Vanier was freed from jail last April after being incarcerated for 18 months on charges she helped falsify documents to get the son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and his family into Mexico.Photo: Global National

OTTAWA — After 18 months behind bars in Mexico, a Canadian woman accused of trying to help the son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has been released, and her parents hope to be reunited with their daughter in the next two days.

Cynthia Vanier was freed from prison Friday morning, said her Toronto lawyer, Peter Downard, who could not give the reasons for her release. Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not respond to questions, citing the Privacy Act.

Reached in Brampton, Ont., Vanier’s father, John Macdonald, called it “a big day for us.”

“We’ve been waiting for 18 months for it,” he said. “I can safely say we’ve got our fingers crossed (we’ll see her) in the next two days.”

However, MacDonald said he and his wife, Betty, were on edge for fear something could still happen to send Vanier sent back to the El Cereso prison, in Chetumal, Quintana Roo.

“We’re pretty nervous until she’s out of the country,” Betty said.

The Macdonalds said they had not yet received a phone call from Vanier. She was released in the pre-dawn hours on Friday, and reportedly taken to an immigration processing centre.

“We don’t know a thing,” Betty Macdonald said.

A professional mediator, Vanier, originally from Mount Forest, Ont., spent the 18 months behind bars in Mexico, first in the capital, Mexico City, and later at a low-security facility near the Mexico-Belize border.

Throughout her incarceration, she denied charges that she had conspired to fly Al-Saadi Gadhafi and his family into Mexico using false documents. She has repeatedly said her only connection to Libya was through Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin, which had various lucrative projects in the Middle Eastern country.

An RCMP affidavit unsealed in January was consistent with what Mexican authorities had alleged. The affidavit was presented to a justice of the peace to obtain a warrant to search the Montreal headquarters of SNC-Lavalin on April 13, 2012.

Allegations in the affidavit have not been proven.

In the affidavit, Cpl. Brenda Makad characterized a fact-finding mission for the Montreal-based engineering firm, headed by Vanier, as a part of a plot to smuggle Gadhafi into Mexico using falsified documents.

The sworn police statement said the trip was initiated by Gadhafi’s Ontario-based bodyguard, Gary Peters, who wanted to show a side of the Libyan uprising he felt was being ignored by the press.

Peters approached SNC-Lavalin vice-president Riadh Ben Aissa, who directed him to his controller, Stephane Roy, police alleged. Roy provided $740,000 to pay for the 10-day trip. The police statement alleged that the money went to Vanier’s company, Vanier Consulting, which in turn hired Peters.

Makad said the trip was billed as a fact-finding mission “but I have reasonable grounds to believe that the real goal of this mission was to plan/facilitate the extraction of Saadi Gaddafi and his family from Libya and then to bring them to Mexico using false documents.”

An Immigration and Refugee Board judge ordered Peters, an Australian national whose security company was based in Cambridge, Ont., deported from Canada in January for his connection to the Gadhafi regime.

Peters said at the time that he planned to appeal. He could not be reached Friday.

It was unclear whether Vanier would face charges if she returned to Canada. RCMP Cpl. Lucy Shorey would only say Friday that Vanier remains “part of an ongoing investigation.”

SNC-Lavalin has disavowed itself of any official connection to a plot to smuggle Saadi Gadhafi out of Libya to Mexico, and a spokeswoman declined to comment on Vanier’s release.

Saadi Gadhafi was most recently reported to have been given safe haven in the West African nation of Niger.